Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh

I had no idea that I’d missed enough issues of the comic to fill that many volumes. I was startled to see that no less than six had already been released, and a seventh, Tales of a Warlock, was on its way. (Cut me some slack… I collect a lot of stuff.) Shortly after Christmas, when I noticed that it was now 2015, I did a quick check to see how many volumes were out. Like Michael, I was thrilled to find the early black & white issues of Courtney Crumrin gradually being collected in handsome and affordable hardcover editions - and in color! I was purchasing them steadily, until I kinda lost track of them.

In the first volume, she traps a child-eating goblin, enchants herself to become the most popular girl in school, travels to the faerie kingdom to swap out a changeling for a human infant, and gets replaced by a doppelganger who turns out to be nicer than her. Ted Naifeh’s series of fantasy comics… introduces us to Courtney Crumrin on the day her vapid parents move in with her grand-uncle, Aloysius… Going through his collection of grimoires, she begins her own self-guided education in the magical arts. If you had magical powers when you were a teenager, what would you have done? How long would you have walked the path of righteousness before cursing the school bullies? Before casting a spell to make yourself popular? Before just flat-out killing bad people? Would you have made friends with elves… or goblins? In his Black Gate blog post on Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, renamed Courtney Crumrin Volume One: The Night Things in its expanded hardcover edition, Michael Penkas did a far better job than I of describing the appeal of this brilliant comic:īe honest. Nearly three years ago, I reviewed the first volume of the new hardcover editions of Courtney Crumrin, concluding that “ Courtney Crumrin is one of the finest comics produced in the 21st Century.”

Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh